In the Monster's Lair

Maureen never saw how she went from the truck to wherever she was now. Somebody pumped gas in the back of the truck and she and her fellow captives passed out. When she awoke she was alone in a bare room with drab walls. No sign of Pete or Atcheson.

The first person, and she used the term loosely, to visit her looked like a mashup of a monster movie scientist and his creation. Bald in some parts, covered in thick, ragged patches of brownish fur in others, he wore the standard mad scientist white lab coat and glasses thicker than her own. One of his forearms was normal; the other was a hairy, meaty slab of twisted muscle that ended in a humongous paw. Like Hellboy. Come to think of it, Hellboy was cuter.

His crooked smile was fully human. Somehow that made it worse.

The smile didn’t last long. “Eh,” he said at first sight of her. “I thought they said they brought in a woman. You won’t do at all. Nice outfit, though.”

Maureen clutched what was left of her battered harem costume more tightly against her nonexistent chest. “Where are my friends?”

“The two louts they caught with you? They’re undergoing processing even as we speak. Your friend with the glasses will be joining my wolf pack shortly. Your blond friend with the anger issues?” He cackled. “I have plans for him. BIG plans.”

This seemed to strike him as funny. He cackled some more.

“As for you … ” He looked her up and down, and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe I’ll just watch you. Ever do girl on girl? But first … ”

All of a sudden he lunged at her and grabbed her arm. He jabbed a hypo into her before she could twist away.

The pain and the assault lasted only a moment. Maureen scuttled to a corner and set her back to the wall. She rubbed her arm and watched him warily. Mr. Monster seemed more elated by the blood he’d drawn than he’d been by the rest of her. “Can’t wait to see what’s in here,” he said. “You know what the problem is with women?”

“They don’t like you?”

“All right, besides that. It’s your chemical makeup. Something in you doesn’t play well with my werewolf serum. That’s why I can only make boys. Testosterone gets them over the hump. The ladies just die in agony. I’ve got to figure out a way around that. The boys are getting testy.” He grinned at her and winked.

Maureen wanted to barf.

He left her alone after that, thank God. Some time later two hirsute guards came in and hauled her off to another part of wherever this place was. Her new prison resembled the harem room back at the biker bar in terms of lace and cushions, just with shoddier curtains. And other occupants. Maureen joined a group of eight dull-eyed women in costumes that made her own look like long johns. All were older than she was, and definitely the worse for wear.

“Hey,” their leader said when Maureen was flung into the room. “You must be the new lab rat. I can’t see him touching you. Hope you like girl on girl.”

“We have to get out of here.”

“No chance. We’ve tried. You don’t want to anyway. You don’t know what’s out there. He likes to let the werewolves roam. They’re not big on foreplay. We’re safer locked in here.” The woman grimly pursed her lips. “There used to be ten of us.”

Maureen found a cushion and curled up on it despondently. No way she was staying here. What would Velma do?

Find out all she could, for starters. The women didn’t know much, but they still knew more than she did. Maureen learned the man with the Hellboy hand was Dr. Morloxian. His job was to take captive humans and turn them into mutant monsters for a madman named Damien Hancock. They’d been at a lab some hours from here up until about a week ago. Then there’d been a massive bugout and now they were here. This new prison was smaller than the old one, but smelled a lot nicer and had prettier walls.

They also told her Morloxian was enormous, but in spite of that sucked in the sack. Maureen would have preferred not to know that.

Judging time was iffy in here. She spent it observing the guards’ routines, and studying the lock for pickability. It helped her not think about Ewan, and how badly she wished he would find her.

She was on day two or three when the monstrous scientist himself suddenly burst into the harem room. The women collectively groaned and fixed strained smiles to their faces while trying to jostle each other to the forefront.

“There you are,” Morloxian sang out gleefully. “You beauty. You absolute beauty.” He seized Maureen.

The relief from the others was palpable. A few of them even waved as he dragged Maureen out the door.

Maureen fought like mad, but he picked her up in his massive wolf arm. Given his muscles versus hers, it wasn’t much of a contest. “I’m not a beauty,” Maureen chattered. “Look. No boobs at all. Just throw me back. I’ll even do girl on girl.”

“You beauty, you beauty,” Morloxian crooned. “Oh, those beautiful genes.”

“And I’m a virgin, so it won’t be any fun for you, and I have this disease, and I—what?”

“You lovely little bitch,” Morloxian said. His ugly, half-wolf face was suffused with bliss. “Little werewolf bitch. All this time you were hiding them from me. Those lovely she-wolf genes.” He beamed a crooked smile at her. “Just enough that there’s a chance you’ll survive the process. You’d better. I’ve already told the boys. You should have heard them howl. You’re going to be the most popular lady in the state. And I won’t have to dig up subjects any more. I can breed my own.”

He started singing to himself. After a moment Maureen recognized the tune: “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

Maureen was not a screamer, or usually a thrasher. She prided herself on using her brains to get herself out of a jam.

Now she thrashed. And screamed.